Forecasting the next 50 years of space research is a dangerous game and a somewhat irresponsible action. Fortunately, the past 50 years have evidenced what remains in the realm of realism and of the feasible and what definitely belongs to the realm of utopia. Nevertheless those who, like me today, take the risk of forecasting such a relatively long time trend are sure of one thing: to be wrong!

The structure of the Universe is determined primarily by the interplay of gravity which is dominant in condensed objects, and the magnetic force which is dominant in the rarefied medium between condensed objects. Each of these forces orders the matter into a set of characteristic structures each with the ability to store and release energy in response to changes in the external environment. For the most part, the storage and release of energy proceeds through a number of Universal Processes. The coordinated study of these processes in different settings provides a deeper understanding of the underlying physics governing Universal Processes in astrophysics.

The Sun is by far the largest reservoir of matter in the solar system and contains more than 99% of the mass of the solar system. Theories on the formation of the solar system maintain that the gravitational collapse is very efficient and that typically not more than one tenth from the solar nebula is lost during the formation process. Consequently, the Sun can be considered as a representative sample of interstellar matter taken from a well mixed reservoir 4.6 Gy ago, at about 8 kpc from the galactic center. At the same time, the Sun is also a faithful witness of the composition of matter at the beginning of the evolution of the solar system and the formation of planets, asteroids, and comets. Knowledge on the solar composition and a fair account of the related uncertainties is relevant for many fields in astrophysics, planetary sciences, cosmo- and geochemistry. Apart from the basic interest in the chemical evolution of the galaxy and the solar system, compositional studies have also led to many applications in space research, i.e., it has helped to distinguish between different components of diffuse heliospheric matter. The elemental, isotopic, and charge state composition of heliospheric particles (solar wind, interstellar neutrals, pickup ions) has been used for a multitude of applications, such as tracing the source material, constraining parameters for models of the acceleration processes, and of the transport through the interplanetary medium. It is important to realize, that the two mainstream applications, as outlined above – geochemistry and cosmochemistry on one side, and tracing of heliospheric processes on the other side – are not independent of each other. Understanding the physical processes, e.g., of the fractionation of the solar wind, is crucial for the interpretation of compositional data; on the other hand, reliable information on the source composition is the basis for putting constraints on models of the solar wind fractionation.

The Sun plays a dominant role as the gravity centre and the energy source of a planetary system. A simple estimate shows that it is mainly the distance from the Sun that determines the climate of a planet. The solar electromagnetic radiation received by a planet is very unevenly distributed on the dayside of the planet. The climate tries to equilibrate the system by transporting energy through the atmosphere and the oceans provided they exist. These quasi steady state conditions are continuously disturbed by a variety of processes and effects. Potential causes of disturbance on the Sun are the energy generation in the core, the energy transport trough the convection zone, and the energy emission from the photosphere. Well understood are the effects of the orbital parameters responsible for the total amount of solar power received by a planet and its relative distribution on the planet's surface. On a planet, many factors determine how much of the arriving energy enters the climate system and how it is distributed and ultimately reemitted back into space. On Earth, there is growing evidence that in the past solar variability played a significant role in climate change.

From the point-of-view of somebody standing outside on a cold winter night looking up at a clear cloudless sky, the space environment seems to be of a peaceful and stable nature. Instead, the opposite is found to be true. In fact the space environment is very dynamic on all spatial and temporal scales, and in some circumstances may have unexpected and hazardous effects on technology and humans both in space and on Earth. In fact the space environment seems to have a weather all of its own – its own “space weather”. Our Sun is definitely the driver of our local space weather. Space weather is an interdisciplinary subject covering a vast number of technological, scientific, economic and environmental issues. It is an application-oriented discipline which addresses the needs of “space weather product” users. It can be truly said that space weather affects everybody, either directly or indirectly. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of what space weather encompasses, emphasizing how solar-terrestrial physics is applied to space weather. Examples of “space weather product” users will be given highlighting those products that we as a civilization are most dependent on.

In our recent paper (Dorotovič et al. 2008a) we focused on a study of the Forbush decrease (FD) of January 17–18 and 21–22, 2005. It was shown that the corresponding recovery time can depend on the density of high-energy protons in the CME matter. In this paper we identified several additional events in the period between 1995 and 2007. We found that the majority of FDs studied is accompanied by an abrupt count increase in the proton channel P1 and by a simultaneous decrease in the channel P7 (GOES). However, the analysis of temporal evolution of all FDs did not confirm the hypothesis on different recovery time after FD as a function of the energy distribution of the particles penetrating into radiation belts of the Earth.

We study the geoeffectiveness of a sample of complex events; each includes a coronal type II burst, accompanied by a GOES SXR flare and LASCO CME. The radio bursts were recorded by the ARTEMIS-IV radio spectrograph, in the 100-650 MHz range; the GOES SXR flares and SOHO/LASCO CMEs, were obtained from the Solar Geophysical Data (SGD) and the LASCO catalogue respectively. These are compared with changes of solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices in order to establish a relationship between solar energetic events and their effects on geomagnetic activity.

A group of 86 healthy volunteers was examined in periods of high solar and geomagnetic activity. In this study hourly Dst-index values and hourly data about intensity of cosmic rays were used. Results revealed statistically significant increments for the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse pressure and subjective psycho-physiological complaints of the group with geomagnetic activity increase and cosmic rays intensity decrease.

While obviously having a common root, solar and planetary dynamo theory have taken increasingly divergent routes in the last two or three decades, and there are probably few experts now who can claim to be equally versed in both. Characteristically, even in the fine and comprehensive book “The magnetic Universe” (Rudiger & Hollerbach 2004), the chapters on planets and on the Sun were written by different authors. Separate reviews written on the two topics include Petrovay (2000), Charbonneau (2005), Choudhuri (2008) on the solar dynamo and Glatzmaier (2002), Stevenson (2003) on the planetary dynamo. In the following I will try to make a systematic comparison between solar and planetary dynamos, presenting analogies and differences, and highlighting some interesting recent results.

Study of solar oscillations has provided us detailed information about solar structure and dynamics. These in turn provide a test of theories of stellar structure and evolution as well as theories of angular momentum transfer and dynamo. Some of these results about the solar structure and its implication on the recent revision of heavy element abundances are described. Apart from these the solar cycle variations in the rotation rate and its gradients are also discussed.

The observations of 3 and 5 minute oscillations in sunspots present information on propagation of MHD waves in the magnetic tubes of sunspots. We present a comparison of wavelet spectra of radio flux oscillations at λ = 1.76 cm and oscillations of longitudinal component of the velocity at the chromosphere in sunspot umbra and penumbra in AR 10661 (2004, Aug 18). The radio maps of the Sun obtained with the Nobeyama Radioheliograph were used. The spatial resolution of the radio data was about 10-15 arcsec, and 10 sec cadence was used. On the radio maps sunspot-associated sources were identified and time profiles of their maximum brightness temperatures for each radio source were calculated. Radio data consists of information of oscillations of plasma parameters (in the regions with magnetic field B = 2000 G) at the level of the chromosphere-corona transition region. The optical observations were carried out at Sayan observatory. These data included information on longitude component of the magnetic field at the photosphere (line Fe I 6569 Å) and longitudinal component of the velocity at the chromosphere (line Hα was used). Comparing the wavelet diagrams covering the same periods of observations at radio and optics showed that some wave trains of time profiles are very similar in both kinds of observations (similar oscillation frequencies and their drifts, variations of amplitudes), however, some significant differences were also registered. The best similarity in optical and radio oscillations was found when the active region (AR) was near the center of the solar disk. The phase shifts between the two kinds of observations reflecting the propagation of MHD waves were also analyzed.

The Photometric-Magnetic Dynamical model handles the evolution of an individual sunspot as an autonomous nonlinear, though integrable, dynamical system. The model considers the simultaneous interplay of two different interacted factors: The photometric and magnetic factors, respectively, characterizing the evolution of the sunspot visible area A on the photosphere, and the simultaneous evolution of the sunspot magnetic field strength B. All the possible sunspots are gathered in a specific region of the phase space (A, B). The separatrix of this phase space region determines the upper limit of the values of sunspot area and magnetic strength. Consequently, an upper limit of the magnetic flux in an active region is also determined, found to be ≈7.23 × 1023 Mx. This value is phenomenologically equal to the magnetic flux concentrated in the totality of the granules of the quite Sun. Hence, the magnetic flux concentrated in an active region cannot exceed the one concentrated in the whole photosphere.

The heliospheric magnetic field and the solar wind are behaving differently in the current solar minimum, compared to the previous minimum. The radial component of the heliospheric magnetic field, and thus the average value of the component of the solar magnetic field that opens into the heliosphere, the so-called open magnetic flux of the Sun, is lower than it was in the previous solar minimum; in fact, lower than in any previous solar minimum for which there are good spacecraft observations. The mass flux, the ram pressure, and the coronal electron temperature as measured by solar wind charge states are also lower in the current minimum compared to the previous one. This situation provides an opportunity to test some of the concepts for the behavior of the heliospheric magnetic field and the solar wind that have been developed; to improve these theories, and to construct a theory for the solar wind that accounts for the observed behavior throughout the solar cycle, including the current unusual solar minimum.

We review physical processes in magnetized chromospheres on the Sun. In the quiet chromosphere, it is useful to distinguish between the magnetic network on the boundaries of supergranules, where strong magnetic fields are organized in mainly vertical flux tubes and internetwork regions in the cell interiors, which have traditionally been associated with weak magnetic fields. Recent observations from Hinode, however, suggest that there is a significant amount of horizontal magnetic flux in the cell interior with large field strength. Furthermore, processes that heat the magnetic network have not been fully identified. Is the network heated by wave dissipation and if so, what is the nature of these waves? These and other aspects related to the role of spicules will also be highlighted. A critical assessment will be made on the challenges facing theory and observations, particularly in light of the new space experiments and the planned ground facilities.

Magnetic helicity is a quantity that describes the linkage and twistedness/shear in the magnetic field. It has the unique feature that it is probably the only physical quantity which is approximately conserved even in resistive MHD. This makes magnetic helicity an ideal tool for the exploration of the physics of eruptive events. The concept of magnetic helicity can be used to monitor the whole history of a CME event from the emergence of twisted magnetic flux from the convective zone to the eruption and propagation of the CME into interplanetary space. In this article, I discuss the sources of the magnetic helicity injected into active regions and the role of magnetic helicity in the initiation of solar eruptions.

Recent work on coronal polar plumes (Gabriel et al. 2003, 2005) has aimed at determining the outflow velocity in plume and interplume regions, using the Doppler dimming technique on oxygen VI observations by SUMER and UVCS on SOHO. By comparing observations of SOHO/EIT with plume modelling, we show that the major part of plumes is the result of chance alignments along the line-of-sight of small enhancements in intensity. This confirms the so-called curtain model. These plumes can be attributed to reconnection activity along the boundaries of supergranule cells. A second population of plumes has a lower abundance and arises from surface bright points having a particular magnetic configuration. New observations using the Hinode/EIS spectrometer are in progress, with the aim of providing further insight for this model.

Observations show that MHD waves are one of the most important universal processes in the heliosphere. These waves are likely to play an important role in energy transfer in the heliosphere, and they can be used as a diagnostic tool of the properties of the local magneto-fluid environment. Recent observations by TRACE and Hinode satellites provide ample evidence of oscillations in coronal active region loops. The oscillations were interpreted as fast (kink), slow, and Alfvén modes, and the properties of the waves were used for coronal seismology. However, due to the complex interactions of the various modes in the inhomogeneous active region plasma, and due to nonlinearity, idealized linear theory is inadequate to properly describe the waves. To overcome this theoretical shortcoming we developed 3D MHD models of waves in active region loops. We investigated the effects of 3D active region magnetic and density structure on the oscillations and the wave dissipation, and we investigated the oscillation of individual loops. Some loops were constructed to contain several threads and twist. Here, we present the results of our models, and show how they can be used to understand better the properties of the waves, and of the active regions.

In this work we present the first results of study and comparison of the parameters of quasi-periodic long-term oscillations of microwave emission of large (>0.7 arcmin) sunspots as a result of simultaneous observations with two radioheliographs – NoRH (17 GHz) and Siberian Solar Radio Telescope (SSRT) (5.7 GHz) with 1 minute cadence. Radioheliographs have been working with quite large time overlap (about 5 hours) and have the high spatial resolution: 10 arcsec (NoRH) and 20 arcsec (SSRT). We have found that quasi-periodic long-term oscillations are surely observed at both frequencies with the periods in the range of 20–150 min. We detected common periods for common time of observations with two radioheliographs and interpret this as the consequence of the vertical-radial quasi-periodic displacements of sunspot as a whole structure.

The known Rieger Periodicity (ranging in literature from 150 up to 160 days) is obvious in numerous solar indices. Many sub-harmonic periodicities have also been observed (128–, 102–, 78–, and 51 – days) in flare, sunspot, radio bursts, neutrino flux and flow data, coined as Rieger Type Periodicities (RTPs). Several attempts are focused to the discovery of their source, as well as the explanation of some intrinsic attributes that they present, such as their connection to extremely active flares, their temporal intermittency as well as their tendency to occur near solar maxima. In this paper, we link the X-ray flare observations made on Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to an existing theoretical model (Lou 2000), suggesting that the mechanism behind the Rieger Type Periodicities is the Rossby Type Waves. The enhanced data analysis methods used in this article (Scargle-Lomb periodogram and Weighted Wavelet Z-Transform) provide the proper resolution needed to argue that RTPs are present also in less energetic flares, contrary to what has been inferred from observations so far.

We have studied spicules observed at the northern solar limb by using simultaneous high resolution image sequences. The images were obtained by Hinode/SOT (in the Ca II H passband) and TRACE (in the 1600 Å passband) during a coordinated campaign. Both data sets were reduced and then carefully co-aligned in order to compare the observed patterns in this highly dynamic region of the Sun. The identification of individual structures in both spectral bands allows us to trace their spatial and temporal behaviour. Persistent intensity variations at certain locations, indicate that at least some spicules have a recurrent behavior. Using wavelet analysis we investigate oscillatory phenomena along the axis of off-limb spicules and we construct 2-D maps of the solar limb with the observed oscillations.